


When Your Feet Don't Touch The Ground

by redandgold



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Sad!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:06:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's what it's like to be in love with your brother's best friend. It's supposed to hurt. When you're in your own room secretly watching chick flicks at night, trying not to hear the giggling through the walls, all of them tell you it's supposed to hurt. Don't worry - you will learn and be trained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Your Feet Don't Touch The Ground

**Author's Note:**

> sad!phil au (in which phil is secretly in love with becks but everyone knows beville exists). Except this is sort of sad!phil with a happy ending?? Either that or even sadder than usual. ANYWAY ReAD ON to see what I mean. Title from the spectacular Gary Barlow's new musical Finding Neverland. You can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BryZjuTiemA) \- it gives some pretty nice atmospheric music!  
> 
> _When your feet don't touch the earth,_  
>  _you can't feel the fates that hurt_  
>  _and you're free, there's no need to come down._  
>  _When your feet don't touch the ground._

Here's what it's like to be in love with your brother's best friend. It's feeling very small and very far away, like you're trapped in a box with a sign from the museum that says 'see but do not touch'. It's your breath hitching ever-so-slightly when he calls your name (even though you know he's not calling  _you_ , not really). It's that fraction of a second when you actually feel like hitting the person you've always been there for because he gets to see and touch, while you get only an awkward wave, before they've gone into the room and you're still holding the hello-welcome-are-you-thirsty drink in your hand.   
  
It's supposed to hurt. When you're in your own room secretly watching chick flicks at night, trying not to hear the giggling through the walls, all of them tell you it's supposed to hurt. Don't worry - you will learn and be trained. From the minute you saw his rosy-cheeked grin you have been training. And you've got pretty good at it; although most people don't need five years to figure out how not to gasp when someone brushes your shoulder by accident.   
  
Here's the thing, though. Most people aren't in love with something they can't have, and most someones aren't things you will never have. Most someones don't have the same corn-coloured hair and bright eyes and cheeky, innocent laugh. Most someones don't make your heart burst without really trying.   
  
Case study #1: when you're lagging behind on the track knowing the gaffer is going to come down on you like a hammer on a pasty, but your legs don't work anymore and you realise you really couldn't care less whether you made it onto the first team or not. And then you hear gravel scratching under shoes that are not your own, and a voice you'd know anywhere saying Philip. Hey, Phil. You look at him with sweat and blood-eyed vision, because it really is him. Go on, Phil. You can do this. For me, eh? He grins and moves on to the next man to say the same things, and you know it you (isn't only you), but you run. For him. Something you really couldn't care more about.   
  
He flirts with everyone and everyone flirts back. Golden balls, someone says jokingly, and it sticks; only he can pull it off. You look at your hands and your lame, limp haircut and ask Paul do I look good enough for - hypothetically, of course - and Paul grunts, a vaguely amused grunt if there ever was one. He's right, of course. You the skinny twat from Bury who plays at the back where no one notices and no one cares. Least of all Mr. Popular the flash cockney.   
  
When he and your brother start sitting together on flights, you realise you are wrong - boys from Bury do have a chance - it was just not yours to take.   
  
Case Study #2: when you get a message just as you're about to go to bed, little letters blinking wanna watch ghostbusters? You know it's getting late, and the gaffer won't like it if you're tired, but you're already putting your shoes on before you blink. You don't want to read too much into it, hand on heart hope to die, but you're typing out sure! :) and a happy shiver is running down your spine. Except before you send it, part two: Gaz's coming with, it'll be fun! And you take off your shoes, slip back into bed and backspace, to tell him next morning sorry, I fell asleep before I saw. Hope you two enjoyed yourselves.   
  
They shouldn't leave you and him alone, because bad things tend to happen, or at least things that aren't meant to happen.   
  
Case Study #3: when he asks you (not Gaz, Gaz is injured, but you pretend not to know) to stay after training and teach him how to tackle because he isn't getting it right. And you pretend to be fine when it's just going to be you and him on the pitch. You've mistimed the demonstration and clatter into his legs, taking him so hard he falls on you with a jesus christ, Philip! and you're both on the ground, unmoving.   
  
He starts to laugh first, his clear ringing laugh that makes you grin furiously and that makes you turn red when he's flipped over to face you, his breath on your nose. You can't do anything, he teases, and is pushing himself off the ground when you don't know why but you say: I can love you. Not loud enough for him to hear, except once you're both up he says did you say anything? You miss a breath and say quickly no, it must've been the wind. He grins a little quietly and pats you on the shoulder. Training resumes, and your other sort of training too.   
  
Here's what you know: you love him. You can never have him. You can never tell him. You will stay alone and forsaken and he will be on that pedestal just out of your reach. It's supposed to hurt, so you let it stab a thousand thorned roses into you heart, and your feet don't touch the ground.  
  
\---   
  
Here's what it's like to be in love with your best friend's brother. It feels like brushing your fingers over the keys of a piano you can never hope to own. It's trying in your own way to drop little hints, like when you're running next to him and tell him for me, eh? and tell no one else that. It's asking him for a scary movie only to have his brother, whether he knows or not that sneaky bastard, invite himself along. It's running too fast so he mistimes a tackle, and hoping against hope that, for that fraction of a second, he did say "I can love you", even though you know it was just the wind. And swallowing the "I love you too" hidden forever on the tip of your tongue.


End file.
